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| Sunday, 29 August 2004 |
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16th death anniversary of veteran journalist Tomorrow is the 16th death anniversary of veteran journalist K. V. S. Vas, who was indeed proud that he had grown with his beloved 'Virakesari'. When this oldest Tamil daily was founded in 1930, it had no formidable rivals worth mentioning except for one or two tabloids. By the time K.V.S. Vas joined the paper as a translator fresh from his university laurels in Madras, there was fierce competition to face. Successive editors of the Virakesari including K. P. Haran, found K. V. S. Vas, as a veritable tower of strength. Vas was no clock watcher. It was solely his love for journalism that prompted him to seek employment on the editorial department of the Virakesari, spurning lucrative openings. His creativity soon asserted itself with the paper beginning to win new readers with his novels and short stories under pen names Valmiki and Rajani. The introduction of fiction in serial form was something entirely new to Sri Lankan journalism and there was no looking back for the paper whose status as a national newspaper had been firmly established. Vas who was appointed Editor-in-Chief in 1959, maintained warm and cordial relations with his counterparts on sister papers and countless were the juicy anecdotes recounted by the late E.C.B. Wijesinghe when they covered the Burma Front during World War II. In spite of his onerous duties, Vas found time to contribute to a number of other journals including `The Hindu'. And this veritable human dynamo who retired from full time journalism in 1975 passed away in 1988 aged 77. This was the man whom a distinguished Indian writer had once deservedly described as `a sixty ton Russian tank'. (PRS) |
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